Letter to the editor: Post office was not customer sensitive

Thursday, February 14, 2013 - 12:01 am

I experienced a situation at the post office on Jan. 7 I feel is quite unacceptable.

I am a member of the Fort Wayne Rotary Club. Our club adopted a company of military troops and made nearly 20 care packages to send overseas. They were packed, taped and addressed and all the customs forms were completed.

I went to the Independence Drive USPS branch, which closed at 5:30 p.m. I arrived at 5:20 p.m. I was completely shocked, but they refused to help me because they were going to be “closing in a couple minutes.” I said, “So you can’t do it? I thought you were open until 5:30.” Each of the four employees behind the counter kept looking at each other as if to decide who was going to help me. They kept “passing the buck” so to speak. One lady even said, “Well, I’m off the clock in a couple minutes.”

It certainly got a bit awkward for the other people in line when it was clear that none of the USPS staff wanted to help me. So I (diplomatically) said, “Hmmm, I always thought when a business establishment was open until 5:30, they stayed until the last customer was served.”

They replied, “Well, you have a lot of packages and you don’t have postage yet.” I said, “But that’s why I came here — to get postage.

Not one of them even apologized. I just said, “OK, I guess I’ll just have to come back” and calmly walked out. To the soldiers expecting these packages, I’m sorry, I guess you’ll just have to wait another day.

Anyway, I just wanted to report this story because I think this USPS branch needs a major lesson in customer service. And it is my hope that a public report of their actions may encourage them to think about how they are treating their customers.